A Shadow's Plight
by The Guardians Phoenix
Summary: A guardian reflects on their journey while those around her delight in the Dawning's festivities.


A hunter watched from the battlements of the tower as the city far below her was slowly coated in a blanket of snow. Neon signs stood ablaze defiant against the storm, but little else had withstood it's fury. Canopies and tents, merchants used to sell their wares, were ripped to shreds creating streaks of color that peeked out of the snow. Windows sat cracked and broken letting snow pile inside. She looked up, and saw that despite the chaos of the world around her the Traveler was as pristine as ever. The Traveler stood defiant, as always, even after what had happened to her after the red war.

The inner city was guarded by the Traveler's fragmented hull leaving those parts of the city were left completely uninhibited by the snow storm. The hunter looked over at that immaculate portion of the city, it's districts far more prestigious than the rest of the last city. The industrial zones, and slums that plagued the rest of the city were absent here; giving way to a metropolis, with its towering skyscrapers, and temples dedicated to the Traveler. As she analyzed that part of the city she couldn't help but feel irked by it. She let out a sigh as her gaze fell back down to the battlements, ashamed by her loss of faith.

She pulled a deck of cards out of one of her many pockets, and began shuffling through it distracting herself before she would be inevitably called into another vanguard operation. Unfortunately, her ghost was far too persistent to uproot her as he asked, "Have you lost your 'spark' again Guardian?" All the hunter could do was simply nod, unwilling to dig through her troubled past. Despite this her ghost rambled on, "You know before I found you I was much in the same bind. I spent years, decades, drifting planet to planet, battlefield to battlefield, city to city, scanning the dead. Looking not just for those with traces of the light, but for the one that I was meant to bring back. Many times I lost faith, that I'd been cursed by the Traveler to a fate of never finding my true guardian. That I'd eternally be on a search that had no end."

The guardian leaned forward on the guard rail, her eyes flicking between the various guardians at work preparing for the dawning. Hunters, titans, and warlocks moved about as if an autonomous unit. Decorations thrown about, laughter shared, joyous spirit slowly being kindled. She quickly averted her gaze, looking back towards the city as she asked, "Then how did you stumble upon me? If you'd all but given up hope?"

Her ghost, in a flash of light, appeared in front of her. An emerald green fire sat ablaze on top of the ghosts obsidian black chassis. His sky-blue eye analyzed her, seeing what she hid behind her helmet. She looked away in shame, but caught herself midway, and shook her head. Turning back she begrudgingly let her ghost analyze the husk that embodied her being. She didn't know how long this had been festering away inside of her, corrupting who she was. She just knew it took over after her crusade on the tangled shore. Having to kill a cousin, one manipulated by the darkness instead of controlled by it. It was different, and she hated that she had enjoyed it, hated the monster that su-. She shook her head again, and let out a sigh.

She noticed her ghost staring at the traveler now as he continued his story, "The Traveler works in mysterious ways, but she always has our best interests at heart. Our path can be confusing, and difficult at times, but she always allows us to see it through if we persevere through the challenges the darkness presents us. Through my hardships I was able to find you, and help guide you. Imagine how different this city, our traveler would have looked without you being resurrected. Without me continuing on when all I was surrounded by was failure."

She pulled her attention away from her ghost, and back to the deck of cards lying in the palm of her pulled the top card, and couldn't help but chuckle. The joker stared back defiantly at her, another ironic twist of luck. She spoke up through clenched teeth, "I'm called many things by many people. Hero of the red war, cursebreaker, undying, _unbroken._" She couldn't help but give out a hollow laugh at the absurdity of it all. Her focus returned to the joker as she continued, "Only one has ever accurately described me, shadow. A shadow of what once was a guardian able to topple gods. A shadow of what once was a guardian able to defend the city from threats. A shadow of what once was able to not hide behind a mask of lies. My failure has crushed me ghost, I'm not the same guardian you resurrected back in the cosmodrome." She says this all matter of factly feeling cold to her core. She hated it, despised herself, but knew she had fallen too far from what she was meant to be to ever recover. "A shadow that will one day be snuffed out by the light once it has outlived its usefulness." She stated as she crumpled the card up in her hand.

As she stared fixated on the crumpled card, her ghost slowly floated back into her view. Concern furrowed his brow and croaked through his synthetic voice as he proceeded with his story, "After decades of floating around our solar system, I decided to return back to where I had once started. Earth wasn't the same as when I had left it. The last city was finally truly a city, guardians were more unified than ever after repelling fallen assault after fallen assault. Guardians were more than just scattered lightbearers. Finally they were the defenders of humanity the Traveler had destined them to be. Seeing all of that made me realize that if guardians could rise this high I could continue on my path to find my own."

He lifted the card out of her hand with a beam of digitized light. He examined the creases, and cracks as he persisted with his story, "Still even with that hope reignited it took years of scouring earth. Lightbearer upon lightbearer I found, but none the right fit. None of them had the spark I was looking for. That is until I stumbled upon the cosmodrome. I'd been there many years before, but something felt different about it this time." He laughs joyfully, "Maybe it was me that was different as I went back over the memorable landscape."

He slowly unfolded the card in her hand, leaving it's creaks and cracks intact as he continued on, "I think I finally realized what I had been looking for. The guardian I was looking for was not just one that could bear the light, but one that could endure the onslaught the darkness would throw at it, and still be standing. One that no matter how damaged it was could always stand back up. One that understood the light was as much a burden as it was a gift. One that had been where I had been."

She took a deep breath as she kept her focus on the broken card. She felt some of the shame float away as she asked, "Ghost, I find it hard to believe you've ever been one to give up hope. Everytime I've fallen you've always been there to bring me back. You've been my anchor to keep on fighting, even when I've stood shattered."

Her ghost ran his eye along the top of his shell until he bobbed up and down in understanding. "The night before I found you was a terrible one. The house of devils had been following me for weeks, but that day they'd started their chase. Ever since the battle at twilight gap the devils had been scorned by the guardians, looking for anyway to strike back at the city, to let guardians feel what the fallen had lost that day. There are many tales of what the fallen do to a captured ghost, and none are pretty, the spider has showed you the aftermath of many of those incidents," he says with a shiver.

He paused for a moment before he continued, "I had been flying for hours at this point, always having to think a step ahead of the fallen skiffs chasing me. I thought at the time that this was my penance from the traveler for failing to find a guardian for so long. That my luck had finally caught up to me, and my indecisiveness was finally going to be my downfall. It wasn't long before I found myself hiding in the wall of the cosmodrome, consumed by fear, shame, and incompetence. I hid in the wall until the sun broke the horizon. I could still hear the fallen scouring the walls around me, but I knew my only chance was to press on. That hiding would only lead to my inevitable demise. I bolted out of the wall, and by the grace of the Traveler I was safe. They didn't see me. I found myself floating for hours, until I came across a shattered bridge. The tomb of humans attempting to run from the darkness. I scanned every last body on that bridge, some bore the light, but none were the right fit. All of them had been running from the inevitable, scared until their last moments. They had been me, even if I didn't want to admit it. As I approached another segment of the wall, and the end of the bridge, I heard the scream of the fallen search party behind me I knew I had to stop running. I turned around, ready to accept that I'd have to settle on one of these guardians, that didn't feel right, and simply guide them down the right path.

She looked down, the shame beginning to well up once again, "So you settled on me?"

His eye lit up as he shook back and forth, "No, quite the opposite, I finally found what I had been looking for all of those decades. In your last moments you stood defiant against the darkness as it consumed old russia. It consumed you as it had done to most of humanity, but you stood until your body gave out. I don't know what lead you to that path, but you old self went out with a light many guardians would be envious of."

She let the card float out of her hand as she let out a deep sigh, "Then where has it gone? I even remember thinking that back when we fought Oryx, or Aksis, but now it's just gone."

"I don't have that answer guardian, but I think it's still there just hidden away. Who you are hasn't changed, the burden that traveler has placed on you has just slowly eroded your resilience." Her ghost turned, and looked at the traveler. "Perhaps this is another burden the Traveler has placed on you. To see if you can climb back up from this abyss."

She looked to her ghost, worry trembled her voice, "What if I can't? What if it's already too late?"

He seemed confused as he stated, "Guardian, neither of us can control what we can or can't do. We could be torn apart by a minion of the darkness at any second. All we can do is keep trying, taking another step when our last one faltered. I couldn't control finding you, but I stuck on my path and I eventually did."

She contemplated what he said for a moment, before she kneeled down and picked up the card. She paused as she reached out for it. Adamantly she said, "Cayde, the speaker, Eris's fireteam, all of those ripped apart in the red war, they tried and where did that leave them? Killed by our enemies, their light extinguished like a flame never to be seen again."

Her ghost returned to her, the flame melted away some of the snow that had accumulated on the card. "What do you remember about Cayde?" he asks.

A memory rushed back to her. Cold steel weighs heavy in her hand as she sees an awoken shrouded in red light, wrapped in a black cloak, unflinching, piercing yellow eyes contrasting his cool blue skin. A betrayer. A cousin she thought long since dead, stared her down, chuckling softly as he taunted her. Her eyes averted to that of her mentor. Breath ragged, numerous bullet holes dotted his brown cuirass, black oil seeped from his wounds creating a pool beneath him, scorch marks littered his body His fate had been sealed. The chuckling slowly bore it's way into her mind, warm steel weighed nothing in her hand as she felt a storm brew inside of her. What had started as a stab of grief, boiled into something far deadlier. Her thoughts melted away as vengeance burned away at her, her hand cannon aimed at her cousin she lined up the shot. As she goes to squeeze the trigger the door slams shut, and her window has passed. She has failed. The gun falls from her hand as it's weight threatened to rip off her arm. In an instant she finds herself kneeling next to Cayde. She reaches out, but stops short not knowing how to help him. He simply smirks as he points to his head, "How's… How's my hair?"

She found herself sitting atop the battlements, legs hung over the edge, hands covered her visor as she cradled her head. She wanted to cry, wanted to grieve for her dead friend, but all she felt was a void inside her. That void frightened her more than any enemy of the light ever had. Despite this she collected herself and answered her ghost, "He was optimistic until the end. Always a jokester. Always looking out for everyone but himself. He was what every guardian should aspire to be."

Her ghost nodded, "Those memories of him, of all the guardians you've helped, have shaped you, molded you into the guardian you are today. Even after death their final shape still etches at you. Their guidance, their laughter, their assistance, and their deaths weren't the end of them. Their own journey led them ultimately to death, but their echo shaped the world around them. That is why we must fight guardian, even if we die fighting our journey will shape those that come after us. They'll finish our journey for us, but we'll have made it easier for them along the way."

She stared down over the edge, her body threatened to fall into the city far below. She asked her ghost, "Where do I even start from here? I've been lost for so long I've lost myself."

He disappeared as he transmatted into her armor, "I don't know guardian. I wish I had that answer for you, but I think it's one you can only find yourself."

She sat in silence as she ran through what her ghosts had told her a thousand times as she gazed at the city below her. She knew that she had to protect them. Needed to in order to keep on. The last city was all she had left to fight for, but she hoped that could change. A hiss filled the air as her helmet depressurized. Unkempt violet hair rolled into her view, she brushed it aside to get a better look at her helmet. It was pristine, a collection of vex parts assembled after the utter annihilation of the undying mind. It was an achievement, but it was not her. She turned it to its side and used the chromes reflective surface to stare back at herself. Once sharp, ice blue eyes, now sunken and craven stared back at her. Once immaculate azure blue skin, now sat scarred, etched by her troubled past. Once orderly, curled, braided violet hair now sat knotted, and shambled. She shut her eyes, and took a deep breath as she let the helmet fall out of her grasp, and tumble into the city depths miles below her. She wondered how long she had kept her helmet on. "Four-hundred and seventy-five days straight." Her ghost interrupted, answering matter-of-factly.

A brief smile curled at her lips as she stated, "Thank you ghost. I don't know what I'd do without you." As the smile slowly faded back into a resting scowl her eyes ran over the city yet again. The restless spin of the Traveler tirelessly continued to protect the inner city from the elements. Sparrows raced endlessly on the Traveler's harrowed ground. Ships took off carrying shipments to the last cities outposts scattered throughout the galaxy. All of it disconnected from the storm consuming the world around them.

While those in the slums slowly moved about, shoveling piles of snow off of their ruined roofs, those with the Traveler's blessing moved about without a care in the world. The guardian looked over her shoulder back to the few guardians revelling in the festivities. "How can we celebrate at a time like this? Those we are meant to protect live like cornered rats while we run about the galaxy playing hero." She spat out disgusted.

"It is all they ha-", her ghost began to say.

"Yet it's not all we can give. Ghost, pull me off of vanguard operations for the day." She stated as she stared down at the lightless working tirelessly to pull their homes back together. "The city deserves our attention for the day. We've been fighting out there for so long we've missed what's been staring us in the face."

Her ghost simply nodded, happy to see a fire inside her once again. With a push she flung herself off the tower. Synthetic light tugged at her very being as she was sent through transmat. Her eyes for one last time rested on the Traveler before the synthetic light ripped her focus away. She now realized if the Traveler had stuck with humanity through it's darkest days the least she could do was try to do her best for them. To do more than hide in her shadow.


End file.
